Abundant Convenience

Oct 06, 2016

Since I hopped on the low tox train and really started trying to reduce waste (particularly plastic) I find I get really bummed when I see people using lots of resources for the sake of convenience. And that was me less than a year ago! I’ve never been excessively wasteful but I wasn’t overly concerned about it.

I know it’s silly but I get really annoyed that some people aren’t trying harder, now my eyes have been opened I want everyone else to open theirs. It’s a bit strange as I don’t judge someone for using toxin filled skin care products but I do judge people for being wasteful, and I have no idea why.

Plastic cutlery in cafes, now that really pisses me off. For something to use so many resources, be picked and packed then transported around the county (or internationally) only to be used for, what, 10 minutes? And then chucked in the bin and sent to landfill where it will remain on the planet forever, doesn’t that just seem completely insane?

How have we gotten so far down this path? I recently went to a cheese making course and found out that it’s actually super easy, so why did people ever stop making their own and start buying the prepackaged stuff? I feel the same way about household cleaners, surely bicarb and vinegar have been used for generations but somehow we moved to paying a lot of money for toxin filled plastic spray bottles, how the hell did that happen!?

We moved from growing our own food, to buying it, to now being sold packets of weird food like stuff, all in the name of convenience. Don’t have time to cook? Here have this weirdo microwave meal. Don’t have time to clean? Use this and bam, the dirt will be gone. What happened to making time for important things? I would have thought it was more inconvenient to be sick and constantly feeling sluggish, it’s no joke that what we put in and on ourselves directly impacts our health.

Rates of illness and allergies are constantly rising but we continue to live the same way, fast paced, always in a rush, no time for our health or the health of the planet, what’s with that?

One of the silliest parts of this whole thing is that making your own cleaners is super easy and really cheap, way more convenient than going to the shops and constantly buying more. When I run out of my carpet cleaner I just make more, how convenient is that! I’ve also started making my own skin care and my skin is absolutely loving it because I can tailor it to my specific needs. Rather than buying many different products I just have a few which work great and again, are much cheaper than store bought. I’m absolutely not saying you need to make all of your own cleaning and skin care products, I’m just trying to reiterate that we’ve been sold this ‘convenient’ lifestyle but sometimes it’s just the opposite.

On the weekend I took my pyrex containers when we got takeaway and my husband said it was really embarrassing! I wasn’t embarrassed at all and no one in the shop seemed to care. If they asked why, I would have said it was to reduce plastic waste and I think starting conversations like that is never a bad thing. I wouldn’t have had a judgy ‘I’m right and you’re wrong’ conversation, just a short explanation which will hopefully stir up questions and interest, and hey, if they make steps to be less wasteful as a result, how great is that!?

There are some super awesome people spreading the waste free message, a few of my favourites are The Rogue Ginger, Treading My Own Path and 1 Million Women. When I read these blogs I realise I have a long way to go on my waste free journey, I can do better, and I will.